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Was the "Satanic panic" of the 1980s/early 1990s a legitimate concern?

See thread title.

  • Yes

    Votes: 2 9.5%
  • No

    Votes: 19 90.5%

  • Total voters
    21
Should we never discuss the Salem Witch Trials because they were over three hundred years ago?

We are supposed to learn from our mistakes.
I'd think that most of the people directly involved in the trials of 30 years ago are still alive and well......If only some could post at DP.....
Its nearly impossible for them to re-amass and have another "trial", but this may be the only way to resolve....the damaged lives....
 
I have oddly fond memories of that time. I was probably in 4th or 5th grade when the scare hit our suburb of Houston. My friends and I found the body of a dog that appeared to have been cut open and had its organs removed. In retrospect I realize it was just a dead dog that had bust open to decay and the release of gasses, but we spent two weeks researching it and playing the Hardy Boys.

In the end we deduced that our science teacher was a secret Satanist and had committed the dirty dead.

Good times.
 
A lot of people whose lives have been ruined? That's a stretch. Have an example of someone who was falsely accused, etc?
I knew a guy who went from fundie church to fundie church with his story of having recovered from Satanic drug use etc to screw the local churchie girls.
Not sure if anyone's life was actually "ruined".
 
I thought it was perfectly clear in the OP. But if you need clarity for some reason: a lot of people were later exonorated from any involvement in such 'Satanic' crimes (a vast majority of individuals convicted under the auspices of the "Satanic panic", in fact, have been cleared, and of the few who remain in prison, virtually all are generally believed innocent by observers). It seems that, from start to finish, the entire thing was a national-level fiasco virtually unprecedented in American history, a mass hysteria in the most literal sense.

Ok - so most were exonerated.

Good, then, right?
 
I have oddly fond memories of that time. I was probably in 4th or 5th grade when the scare hit our suburb of Houston. My friends and I found the body of a dog that appeared to have been cut open and had its organs removed. In retrospect I realize it was just a dead dog that had bust open to decay and the release of gasses, but we spent two weeks researching it and playing the Hardy Boys.

In the end we deduced that our science teacher was a secret Satanist and had committed the dirty dead.

Good times.

You are not going to leave it at that will you? What did the Hardy Boys do against the newly deduced Satanist teacher that was sacrificing dog body parts to the devil?
 
Generally, no. Pretty much, if there was a rumor or public accusation that there was Satanic activity going on in your midst from the 60s onward, it was folklore and not really based in reality. This includes Europe and the united states. There have been few actual incidents where people believe they are ritualizing Satan and performing abhorrent ceremonies that involve sacrifice and so forth. The only real development is that people interested in the occult took seriously notions that the Catholics and Protestants worked up in treatises centuries beforehand (which had before that time didn't really exist and we're dismissed by the Church prior to the 14th century).
 
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I remember those days well. I wore my hair long and lived on a street in California where many of my neighbors were in law enforcement (there's actually more gossip not necessary to this telling).

One day my Daughter (at age 12) was riding her skate board along the canal behind one of the LEO's houses when she was accosted by two boys. They stole her sun glasses, but fled after she started screaming loudly. She came home and told me about the incident.

A week later, I'm working 2 hours away from home, staying in a motel, when my wife (at the time) shows up at the motel with both kids in tow. She's obviously distraught. She looks me in the eye and asks me if I have been sexually molesting our daughter. A couple of detectives had gone to my daughter's school, pulled her out of class, and questioned her on this subject.

I looked my wife in the eye and said "no". My daughter said that she had tried to explain it to Mom, but Mom wanted to hear it from me.

LEO had misunderstood what my daughter was screaming at the boys and thought that she was screaming my name. Not 'Dad', but my first name.

I might take a trip back there some day. Revenge is a dish best served cold.
 
You are not going to leave it at that will you? What did the Hardy Boys do against the newly deduced Satanist teacher that was sacrificing dog body parts to the devil?

Alas, around that time we found a huge collection of Playboy magazines in someone's garbage. Our attention was sufficiently diverted.
 
Perhaps but part of it relates to the sexual exploitation of minors which is of real concern even today.

I'd say - seeing as how it's happening quite frequently. . .no faux claims of Satanism needed.
 
A lot of people whose lives have been ruined? That's a stretch. Have an example of someone who was falsely accused, etc?

Tell that to the McMartin's or to Dale Akiki. Along with the others mentioned above. There were a lot of peoples lives turned upside down over this hysteria.
 
Alas, around that time we found a huge collection of Playboy magazines in someone's garbage. Our attention was sufficiently diverted.

And you never thought that they were put there in purpose did you!?
 
Tell that to the McMartin's or to Dale Akiki. Along with the others mentioned above. There were a lot of peoples lives turned upside down over this hysteria.

I was saying that about now.
 
my mother and my uncle were both victims of satanic ritual abuse. Shame on everyone here who pretends this never existed.
 
Tell that to the McMartin's or to Dale Akiki. Along with the others mentioned above. There were a lot of peoples lives turned upside down over this hysteria.

Thats the name i was trying to remember.

McMartin preschool.

Massive sexual abuse by the whole staff.

In the news for months.

Never happened. Guy spent like ten years in prison until the kjds got old enough to recant.

Not satanic, it was the "where did he touch you" dolls, before they realized kids want to please so they figure out what story you're trying to hear and tell it to you.

What always offended me was there is never any effort to sensationalize the vindication of the falsely accused. All i saw was a short piece about one guys release, but they talked about it daily for about a year during the investigation and trial.
 
Thats the name i was trying to remember.

McMartin preschool.

Massive sexual abuse by the whole staff.

In the news for months.

Never happened. Guy spent like ten years in prison until the kjds got old enough to recant.

Not satanic, it was the "where did he touch you" dolls, before they realized kids want to please so they figure out what story you're trying to hear and tell it to you.

What always offended me was there is never any effort to sensationalize the vindication of the falsely accused. All i saw was a short piece about one guys release, but they talked about it daily for about a year during the investigation and trial.

Reread the case study. Satanic ritual abuse played a significant role in the accusations.
 
my mother and my uncle were both victims of satanic ritual abuse. Shame on everyone here who pretends this never existed.

Sorry for you mother and uncle but I say shame on you for suggesting that because we are speaking out against the sensational hysteria of ritual abuse that swept the nation we are somehow for ritual abuse in the isolated circumstances in which it actually happened.
 
my mother and my uncle were both victims of satanic ritual abuse. Shame on everyone here who pretends this never existed.

Did they always remember or did it take the help of a "therapist" of some kind to "recover" the suppressed memories?

The problem always was that not everybody will suppress traumatic events, yet the satanic panic "victims" all did.

No disrespect, but "recovered memories" are almost always "planted" memories.
 
Reread the case study. Satanic ritual abuse played a significant role in the accusations.

Thanks. Couldnt remember. Just remember the doll bit.
 
my mother and my uncle were both victims of satanic ritual abuse. Shame on everyone here who pretends this never existed.

This is highly unlikely, factually speaking.
 
Britain suffered an episode of this in the early 1990's, kids removed from families for safety and "therapy"..
 
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